Disney Creates System That Lets You Feel Textures on Touchscreens

by William White | October 9, 2013 12:08 pm

[1]Disney (DIS[2]) researchers have created a system that allows people to feel textures[3] on a flat touchscreen.

The system was created by a group of Disney researchers at the Disney research lab in Pittsburgh. The system involves a vibration-generating algorithm that tricks a user’s finger into believing that it’s touching a textured surface. The system works by causing vibrations that stretch the skin on the finger, much like what a real object would do when touched. The researchers claim that the technology can be used to replicate a large number of textures. Researchers claim that the vibration-generating algorithm should be easy to add to existing touchscreen devices. Disney believes that this new system will be more effective at giving tactile feedback than current systems used with touchscreens, reports BBC News.

“We believe our algorithm will make it possible to render rich tactile information over visual content and that this will lead to new applications for tactile displays,” Ivan Poupyrev, the director of Disney Research, Pittsburgh Interaction Group, told Pentagon Post[4].